Educational music videos, many featuring math topics (giving rise to a new entertainment class which EdSurge calls "MuVHEMs: Music Videos Helping Explain Mathematics"
"Move the World, a workshop first tried out at Gymnasium Delbrück (a high school) that leveraged math and virtual worlds to increase high school juniors' interest in computer science."
by dr. sarah-marie belcastro, "You might wonder why one would want to knit mathematical objects. One reason is that the finished objects make good teaching aids; a knitted object is flexible and can be physically manipulated, unlike beautiful and mathematically perfect computer graphics. And the process itself offers insights: In creating an object anew, not following someone else's pattern, there is deep understanding to be gained. To craft a physical instantiation of an abstraction, one must understand the abstraction's structure well enough to decide which properties to highlight. Such decisions are a crucial part of the design process, but for the specifics to make sense, we must first consider knitting geometrically."
Abstract:"This paper discusses the results of a pilot st
udy that explored how
prospective secondary
school teachers are shaped by learni
ng experiences during their undergraduate
mathematics education. The collabora
tive study, which was conducted by a
mathematician and a mathematics educator, dr
ew from the experiences of prospective
teachers in a non-traditional undergraduate ma
thematics program that makes extensive
use of technology. Analysis of data collect
ed from detailed questionnaires, journals, and
focus group discussions strongly suggests
that designing, implementing, and testing
Learning Objects promotes prospective teache
rs' learning of the mathematics needed for
teaching. Furthermore, the analysis shows t
hat prospective teachers' experiences of
ownership, engagement, and pride are key
to positive learning experiences. "
Subtitled "A Place for Elegant Solutions." From the author's description: "This blog is a presentation of the interesting solutions I come across, and an exploration of the deeper mathematical ideas therein. Most often this means exploring the mathematical structure of a problem to lubricate the cogs of algorithm design. In seldom cases, this involves using programs to reason about mathematical theory."
from the abstract: "Mathematics is now at a remarkable
in exion point, with new technology radically extending the power and limits of individuals. Crowd-
sourcing pulls together diverse experts to solve problems; symbolic computation tackles huge routine
calculations; and computers check proofs too long and complicated for humans to comprehend.
The
Study of Mathematical Practice
is an emerging interdisciplinary eld which draws on philoso-
phy and social science to understand how mathematics is produced. Online mathematical activity
provides a novel and rich source of data for empirical investigation of mathematical practice - for
example the community question-answering system
mathover ow
contains around 40,000 mathe-
matical conversations, and
polymath
collaborations provide transcripts of the process of discovering
proofs. Our preliminary investigations have demonstrated the importance of \soft" aspects such as
analogy and creativity, alongside deduction and proof, in the production of mathematics, and have
given us new ways to think about the roles of people and machines in creating new mathematical
knowledge. We discuss further investigation of these resources and what it might reveal.
Crowdsourced mathematical activity is an example of a \social machine", a new paradigm, identi-
ed by Berners-Lee, for viewing a combination of people and computers as a single problem-solving
entity, and the subject of major international research endeavours. We outline a future research
agenda for mathematics social machines, a combination of people, computers, and mathematical
archives to create and apply mathematics, with the potential to change the way people do mathe-
matics, and to transform the reach, pace, and impact of mathematics research."
From the abstract: "is research develops around a technological intervention intended to transform
a peer produced reference resource into a peer produced learning environment. An
early Web 2.0 community for mathematics, PlanetMath.org, will henceforth become a
mathematical practicum, and a laboratory for learning science."
"To make the nightly math problem as common as the bedtime story." Features an email list for nightly math problems as well as a book of problems and riddles.
From the abstract: "ew innovations by math-
ematicians themselves are starting to harness the power of
social computation to create new modes of mathematical
production. We study the effectiveness of one such system,
and make proposals for enhancement, drawing on AI and
computer based mathematics. We analyse the content of a
sample of questions and responses in the community ques-
tion answering system for research mathematicians,
math-
overflow
. We find that
mathoverflow
is very effective, with
90% of our sample of questions answered completely or in
part. A typical response is an informal dialogue, allowing
error and speculation, rather than rigorous mathematical
argument: 37% of our sample discussions acknowledged er-
ror. Responses typically present information known to the
respondent, and readily checked by other users: thus the
effectiveness of
mathoverflow
comes from information shar-
ing. We conclude that extending and the power and reach of
mathoverflow
through a combination of people and machines
raises new challenges for artificial intelligence and compu
ta-
tional mathematics, in particular how to handle error, anal
-
ogy and informal reasoning."
Abstract: "Why do people contribute content to communities of question-
answering, such as Yahoo!Answers? We investigated this
issue on MathOverflow, a site dedicated to research-level
mathematics, in which users ask and answer questions. Math-
Overflow is the first in a growing number of specialized Q&A
sites using the Stack Exchange platform for scientific collab-
oration. In this study we combine responses to a survey with
collected data on posting behavior on the site. User behavior
suggests that building reputation is an important incentive,
even though users do not report this in the survey. Level of
expertise affects users' reported motivation to help others,
but does not affect the importance of reputation building.
We discuss the implications for the design of communities
to target and encourage more contributions."
(Access to full text requires subscription or purchase.) First volume in a new series, Mathematics Education in the Digital Age, features chapters on collaborative learning and new technologies, abstracts available.
From the abstract: "this study investigated how the perspectives of the non-computer science educators changed after learning game-programming and how it could be fitted into the K-12 curriculum. Fourteen non-computer science educators and/or administrators in the K - 16 educational systems who made up a cohort at Sam Houston State University, Master of Education/Instructional Technology Program participated in this study. The participants were required to learn two free Web 2.0 game-programming applications and reflect on an article related to reviving interest in math and science as part of their program. Qualitative data consisted of online reflections, and peer-review processes through Facebook. A quantitative component was added to the analysis. The findings indicated that: (a) the perspectives of the participants changed from negative to positive as they reflected on their own game-programming learning experiences; (b) participants came to understand how game programming could build up students' logical concepts and critical thinking skills improving performances in math, science, and other subjects; and (c) due to the benefits of logical concepts and critical thinking skills game programming could have immense benefits if built into the K-12 curriculum."